1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnifying projecting lens which is used in a projector, such as a liquid crystal projector, and more specifically to a projecting lens which requires a long back focus; that is a distance between a surface to-be-projected and the projecting lens.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIGS. 54 and 55 show optical systems of this kind of projector.
In the optical system shown in FIG. 54, a light beam W emitted from a light source is separated into color components of R(red), G(green) and B(blue) by a dichroic mirror 2. Each component is made incident onto a liquid crystal light bulb 4 after being reflected by a mirror 3. The light beam components R, G and B passing through the liquid crystal light bulbs 4, 4, . . . are overlaped by a dichroic prism 5 and projected onto a screen 7 through a projecting lens 6.
However, the dichroic prism 5 is expensive because the prism requires high accuracy to finish and cement. In general, the method with the dichroic mirror shown in FIG. 55 is put into practice.
In this method, at least two dichroic mirrors are disposed in different positions to make the light beam components R, G and B overlap. A distance between the liquid crystal light bulb 4 and the projecting lens 6 becomes long, to make sure of the space for these dichroic mirrors 8; that is the projecting lens 6 requires a long back focus.
The easiest method to make a back focus of a lens long is to make a focal length of the lens long. However, when the focal length becomes long, the distance between the projecting lens and the screen becomes long. In particular, it is not desirable for a box type projector for projecting from the backside of the screen, because a depth of the projector becomes large even if the optical path is turned.
A retro focus lens has a long back focus in comparison with the focal length. However, the retro focus lens is composed of many pieces and is expensive.